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Real-time measurements reveal antiferromagnetic skyrmions move in line with an applied current

Skyrmions—essentially magnetic vortices—represent a promising approach in spintronics; in the future, they could serve as components in storage media or computers, potentially complementing established CMOS technologies. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now visualized the interaction of antiferromagnetic skyrmions for the first time and shown that antiferromagnetic skyrmions move reproducibly along straight trajectories aligned with the driving electric current.

“Our results establish a quantitative framework for the interactions of antiferromagnetic skyrmions. In doing so, they pave the way for spintronic devices based on large numbers of skyrmions,” said Mona Bhukta from the research group of professor Mathias Kläui at the JGU Institute of Physics. The researchers published their findings today in the journal Nature Physics.

Tiny particles defy action-reaction symmetry to stay in motion

From schools of fish and flocks of birds to microscopic synthetic particles, many systems in nature and the laboratory consist of individual units or agents that move by consuming energy. These systems are known as active matter because their components continuously use energy to generate motion, either individually or through interactions with their environment.

Inspired by such systems, researchers have become increasingly interested in nonreciprocal interactions, in which the influence one particle exerts on another is not equally returned. In other words, one particle can affect another more strongly than it is affected in return, effectively breaking action-reaction symmetry. This is surprising because, under Newton’s third law, passive particles cannot continuously push one another in the same direction.

In this system, however, nonequilibrium electrohydrodynamic flows allow one particle to effectively “chase” another, so activity emerges even though the particles themselves are not self-propelled. Such asymmetry can generate entirely new forms of collective motion and self-organization. However, experimental realizations have largely been limited to small particle clusters.

Schizophrenia’s Brain Damage May Start in One Key Region

Schizophrenia may leave a distinctive biological footprint across the brain’s communication network.

Using specialized PET imaging, researchers have mapped where synaptic connections are most reduced in people with schizophrenia and identified a possible region from which the damage begins to spread.

The study, which involved a Rutgers professor, was published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Scientists Catch a Hidden Electronic State Forming Almost Instantly

Researchers observed a hidden state triggered by light forming within 30 femtoseconds.

A pulse of light sent a metal-organic framework into a hidden electronic state in just 30 femtoseconds. By watching the transformation almost as it happened, researchers uncovered a fleeting intermediate stage that appears to guide the material into its new state.

The work was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo, Tohoku University, and Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan. Combining ultrafast laser spectroscopy with theoretical calculations allowed them to identify the transient electronic state and clarify its role in the rapid transition. The results could improve efforts to control material properties using light.

This AI Can Find the Missing Atoms That X-Rays Cannot See

An AI model adapted from image inpainting can reconstruct missing atoms in crystal structures with a reported 97 percent success rate.

A crystal structure can appear nearly complete yet still be unusable for computer simulations because some of its atoms are missing. Hydrogen is a frequent source of these gaps, and researchers have now adapted an artificial intelligence technique used to repair images to predict where those hidden atoms belong.

The approach was developed by a team led by Giovanni Pizzi of the PSI Center for Scientific Computing, Theory and Data, working with researchers from the universities of Parma and Modena in Italy. Described in npj Computational Materials, the method applies computer vision, in which AI recognizes and interprets visual information, to incomplete crystal structures.

Starlink Satellites Reveal a Hidden Atmosphere 300 Miles Above Earth

Satellites designed to provide internet service are now serving an unexpected second purpose: helping scientists map the nearly invisible atmosphere at the edge of space.

Researchers at Kyoto University have used orbital changes from about 1,200 Starlink satellites to map Earth’s thermosphere, a thin and difficult-to-observe region of the upper atmosphere. Their analysis produced the first tomographic map of its kind, revealing atmospheric density patterns roughly 482 kilometers (300 miles) above Earth. The study was published in Earth, Planets, and Space.

Although satellites in low Earth orbit travel through what appears to be empty space, traces of atmosphere remain even hundreds of kilometers above the surface. Collisions with these sparse particles create drag, slowly reducing a spacecraft’s speed and altitude.

Shipping 1050× More Code? Watch This Webinar on Securing AISpeed Development

AI is helping development teams produce far more code, far faster. But security teams still have to review vulnerabilities, manage dependencies, prioritize fixes, and control risk at human speed.

When software output jumps 10 to 50 times, the problem is no longer just finding vulnerabilities. It is keeping security from becoming the bottleneck, or worse, losing control of what gets shipped.

In our latest webinar with Chainguard experts, “The True Cost of Building at Machine Speed,” you can now watch how security teams can keep AI-driven development fast without letting risk scale with it.

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